| Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921. |
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| II. The Children of the Night |
| 31. The Tavern |
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| WHENEVER I go by there nowadays | |
| And look at the rank weeds and the strange grass, | |
| The torn blue curtains and the broken glass, | |
| I seem to be afraid of the old place; | |
| And something stiffens up and down my face, | 5 |
| For all the world as if I saw the ghost | |
| Of old Ham Amory, the murdered host, | |
| With his dead eyes turned on me all aglaze. | |
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| The Tavern has a story, but no man | |
| Can tell us what it is. We only know | 10 |
| That once long after midnight, years ago, | |
| A stranger galloped up from Tilbury Town, | |
| Who brushed, and scared, and all but overran | |
| That skirt-crazed reprobate, John Evereldown. | |
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